Brendan Gleeson has told Sunday with Miriam on RTÉ Radio 1 that the work of St Francis Hospice in the north Dublin suburb of Raheny is "an example for the country".
The Banshees of Inisherin Oscar nominee joined Miriam O'Callaghan on Easter Sunday to discuss the work of St Francis Hospice and its plans for expansion, which see him in the role of ambassador.
Both of Gleeson's late parents received care in the hospice. He described it as a place that puts kindness "at the very top of the tree", achieved through "utter professionalism and total dynamism".
"Every time I go in there, I come out feeling uplifted and feeling optimistic about what is possible when you get good people working professionally," he said.
"So you mean you believe that model could be adopted in other areas of life - like housing?" asked the host.
"All over," Gleeson replied.
"I would take it as the basic notion of government that, 'This is what we're trying to do'. And that you would drive it with the same relentless professionalism and the lack of faffing about when things are not working or people aren't doing what they need to be doing - get them the hell out of there! I mean it.
"Like, nobody goes in there and starts faffing around in the place because they're enjoying the notion of working in the hospice. It won't be tolerated - you'll be out. And they don't tolerate situations whereby people have been neglected, people have been left - that is so anathema to what they've committed to.
"So if you go into hospitals, I've been in too many hospitals where the staff are absolutely out on their feet, exhausted. And the situations where people are being left for hours or where the staff cannot cope anymore - it would not be tolerated in a hospice situation because that's not what they're there to do."
2/4 The campaign invites companies working in or alongside the construction sector to come together to fundraise nearly €3.5m to support the cost of the redevelopment of the new 24-bed in-patient unit planned for our Raheny hospice.@CIF_Ireland #LivingToday #SFHRaheny pic.twitter.com/NtEvd6GiCZ
— St. Francis Hospice (@SFHDublin) March 27, 2023
Gleeson continued: "The kind of ruthlessness that needs addressing - whereby you say, 'I'm sorry, you're getting in the way. You should not be here. Out you go' - it has to start being brought into other areas of life. I don't want to see a whole pile of people sacked for no reason, but what I want to see is that you don't accept it. You don't accept the nonsense.
"If you follow the model of what I see in there in St Francis as a model for how we want to live in this republic ... This is what people died for so that we can put ourselves at the top of the tree. And our welfare and the commitment to it and the ruthlessness that it might require to leave that at the top of the tree - I think it's an example for everybody.
"Looking back on all the things that have happened in the hundred years of [since] the Civil War now - all the kind of stuff - and you kind of say, 'Where did it lead us to, a place?' It's led to a place of great financial riches, but everybody knows there's something starting to go awry here and has been going for a while. If we don't learn from it and say, 'Ok, what's missing at that is what should be at the top of the tree', in the end, are we minding ourselves?
"That's where the strength of mind and will comes from, where you say, 'Right, if there has to be collateral damage, where people are neglecting other people - get them out of there'. That's what I believe and that's what happens in the hospice. That's why I'm hoping that people will contribute to this new extension where people are trying to make - from a beautiful place, in St Francis in Raheny - they're trying to make it even better."
"Most people want to be given the chance to care and to be minded," Gleeson concluded. "So I think people are just waiting for the chance. That is the economy of kindness that Séamus Heaney talked about. You have a currency whereby you hand kindness, you receive kindness and it never decreases - you're getting compound interest all the time.
"So it's like, that's where we are. I think we have to get a bit tougher about the way we protect the soft parts. And then if it becomes overwhelming, people have to be aware and look around and see it, and they have to be encouraged to do it and not feel that they're being flaky or anything like that.
"It has to be ok to say, 'Listen, can you give us a hand here?'"
For more on the work of St Francis Hospice, visit: sfh.ie.
